


Forever is a Long Time

by dawnperhaps



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnperhaps/pseuds/dawnperhaps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel comes back from Purgatory completely destroyed.  Sam doesn’t want to watch him die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever is a Long Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheTrickyOwl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTrickyOwl/gifts).



> Written for Kylie (TheTrickyOwl) on her birthday! I hope you enjoy, darling. Meeting you was a beautiful experience I will never forget.

**The Other Talk**

Gabriel’s vessel is slight and short.  It’s never helped that Sam is – to put it lightly – unusually tall, but Gabriel has never been a large physical presence.  He has something else, though, something more important and more intimidating than a large stature could ever be.  Whatever it is, it always makes Sam marvel at the brilliance of him, feeling unbelievably dim standing in the shadows cast by his Grace and sometimes feeling humbled standing in the light of it.  Gabriel, for all his casual snark and cocky smirks, is incredibly dangerous and old, an ancient power that could crush anything outside of Purgatory with nothing more than a thought.  He was Sam’s only strength when Sam came back from Hell, firm and unyielding in the face of flashbacks that had Sam shuddering convulsively in the corner of the motel bathroom.  Sam might be six foot four, but Gabriel is an Archangel.  He’s raw power, a terrifying weapon of Heaven.  Sam’s soul is barely a hundredth of Gabriel’s Grace.

But curled up under a thin blanket in the backseat of the Impala, Gabriel has never looked so small.

Sam knows that he should be there.  He should be in the backseat, combing his fingers through Gabriel’s hair and murmuring comforting nonsense to him, and then sitting beside him in bed, keeping his nightmares away.  Instead, Sam sits in the front and stares out the side window, avoiding the side view mirror and keeping his gaze fixed on the trees.  He barely sleeps, spending all his time holed up in the nearest diner whenever they stop at a hotel for the night and Gabriel has to climb into a bed and try to lay as still as possible for fear of aggravating his physical injuries, the ones that already have him groaning and whimpering, even when he’s still.  Sam avoids him in every way.  He doesn’t even think about Gabriel, not the way Gabriel used to smile at him so genuinely or the way Gabriel would sneak Skittles into Sam’s travel bag or the way Gabriel used to wake him up with a saccharine sweet kiss before vanishing before Dean could wake up and find them together.  No, Sam thinks of none of that, or perhaps only tells himself he’s not thinking about it.

Gabriel never left his side as Sam slowly lost his mind to Lucifer.  But now, now that Gabriel has escaped from Purgatory with Dean, broken and bloody, his wings ripped to shreds by things Sam has probably never even imagined, Sam can’t be there for him.  Gabriel sacrificed his own safety to go into what is arguably the most dangerous place in the universe after Sam’s brother – for Sam – and Sam can’t even sit with him.  He won’t let himself.

He can see everything – the betrayal, the resignation, the confusion – in Gabriel’s eyes every time he’s foolish enough to look long enough to make eye contact, but he can’t make himself do the simple things he’d need to do to alleviate that.  He wants to wrap Gabriel up in his arms and protect him from his own torment.  Whenever he sees Dean begrudgingly retying the bandages wrapped around Gabriel’s ruined wings, he wants to rip the supplies from his older brother’s hands and do it right, touching gently and straightening the remaining feathers just like Gabriel taught him.  It would be so easy to offer his once lover that tiny bit of comfort.

But Gabriel is back at the motel.  And Sam is at a diner.  And neither is getting any closer to the other.

Sam normally drinks his way through several cups of coffee (or beers, when he’s particularly miserable) and then returns back to the motel room to find Dean and Gabriel both asleep, awkwardly facing away from each other in separate beds.  Sam sleeps in chairs when he sleeps at all.  Tonight, he’s barely halfway through his second cup of coffee when Dean slides into the booth across from him.  He looks up for an explanation – not because he’s concerned for Gabriel all alone in the room, not at all – but Dean only flags down a waitress and orders his own coffee, and Sam isn’t going to initiate a conversation if Dean isn’t.

“I don’t like that Archangel,” Dean says suddenly, eyes fixed on his coffee.  Almost twenty minutes of silence had preceded that statement, but Dean sounds as casual as ever, like they’ve been conversing since he sat down.

Sam looks up with a surprised frown, beginning to shake his head.  The hunter might be avoiding his angel, but Gabriel doesn’t deserve the criticism, not right now.  “Dean-”

“Let me finish,” Dean interrupts, meeting Sam’s gaze with a calmness that Sam can’t believe he’s even capable of after everything that happened – or Sam imagines happened – in Purgatory.  Sam balks at him for a moment before nodding to acquiesce to listening to his speech.

“I don’t like that Archangel,” Dean repeats with a sigh, brow furrowing as if he’s remembering the Tuesday time loop or the television show illusions.  “Hate him, actually.  Biggest pain in my ass since his brothers were knocking down our doors trying to climb into our bodies.  He may have kamikazied into Purgatory after me, but he’s still a dick with wings, just like the rest of ‘em.”  He pauses, looking frustrated, his lips pursing like he doesn’t want to say more.  “But what you’re doing right now, Sam?  Whatever the fuck that is?  That dick with wings deserves a little bit better than that.”

When Sam remembers to breathe again, his inhale is choppy and he feels like he was just sucker punched in the gut.  Only this punch is completely deserved.  He nods reluctantly, wrapping his fingers more tightly around his coffee cup.  “Yeah.  Yeah, he does.”

“I don’t get it, Sammy,” Dean continues, shrugging his shoulders and finally meeting Sam’s gaze.  “You’re the touchy-feely one.  Hell, you made the first move, didn’t you?  I don’t think you’d hang him out to dry for no reason.  So what is it?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Sam tries to insist, but his resolve crumbles in the face of Dean’s concern, open and honest in a way that is incredibly rare.  Any other time, Sam would be grateful for that show of emotion, but right now he just wants to hide and repress.  “I don’t know, man.”

“Did you get over him while he was gone?” Dean offers incredulously.  “I get it, if that’s it.  A lot of stuff happened, a lot of time went by.”

“No.  Fuck, no,” Sam says with a humorless laugh.  “I just.  He’s so… broken, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, raising an eyebrow.  “That’s kind of the point.”

Sam has to look away, running a hand anxiously through his hair.  “No, I mean… he’s broken.  And I don’t think… Dean, I don’t think I can fix it.”

“It’s not about fixing it.  You just need to-”

“Be there while he dies?” Sam demands harshly, his voice tight.

Dean’s face lights up with realization and Sam’s expression crumples as his words finally hit his own ears, his carefully crafted walls of denial tipping over and letting loose a storm of terror and desperation.  He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and grits his teeth.

“Sammy-”

“I can’t do it, Dean,” Sam insists, suddenly quiet.  “I can’t just sit around while he just fades away.”  He lets out a breath.  “It’s Jess all over again.  Only slower.  I can’t do it again.  I can’t.”

They’re both quiet for a long time.  Dean goes back to his coffee without another word and Sam searches for answers – or maybe just respite – in his napkin, twisting the edges around his fingers.  For a long time, he thinks that Dean will finish his coffee, declare Sam a lost cause, and return back to the hotel to offer Gabriel a candy bar that the angel won’t have the energy to eat.  When Dean speaks again, Sam nearly jumps out of his skin.  He hasn’t felt this uneasy since Hell was still fresh in his mind, but Dean is still strangely calm.

“I get it,” the older Winchester says.  “I do.  But I made the same mistake you’re making now.  I pushed Cas away.  Shoved him, really.  I kicked the crap out of a broken angel.  And I don’t know where he is right now, but I can only imagine that he thinks he’s completely alone in the world, that I hate him, y’know?”

“We’ll find him,” Sam says, because it feels good to know something for sure, to have a little bit of control, even if he’s just fooling himself.

“I hope so,” Dean admits.  “But Sammy.  If you keep doing what you’re doing… well, you know I’ll understand.  But you’ll hate yourself, man.  And I don’t want to see you do that.”

Sam opens his mouth to say he hates himself already – has hated himself for a very long time, in fact – but Dean is flagging down the waitress again to get his check and Sam figures that Dean already knows that.  Better than anyone.

-

**The Talk**

When Sam returns back to the hotel room, Dean isn’t there and Gabriel isn’t in bed.  He panics for a moment, hand moving to the gun at his hip, before he spots the Archangel moving along the wall, anchoring himself against it as he heads back to the bed.  Gabriel’s face is twisted in pain, but he continues moving, probably returning from a late night run to the bathroom to change his bandages.  Sam remains frozen up until the moment he catches sight of Gabriel tipping a little, his footing less sure, and after a moment, Sam realizes he’s sinking to the floor.

“Hey,” Sam calls out irrationally, rushing forward and around the bed to catch him.  Gabriel gasps in pain and then again in surprise when he catches sight of Sam and not Dean, the angel’s fingers closing reflexively around the hunter’s arm.  Sam doesn’t like looking at the shock in his eyes, so he focuses instead on moving them both onto the bed, hooking his hands under Gabriel’s arms and carting himself backward.

“Sam,” Gabriel whines, his voice a combination of pain and confusion.

“I’ve got you,” Sam promises, pulling Gabriel back to rest against his chest, moving slowly and carefully.  Gabriel makes soft noises of distress despite Sam’s efforts, and he barely stops himself from crushing the shattered Archangel in a protective embrace, as if he could just hold onto him and prevent him from slipping away.  Even Gabriel’s vessel feels lighter, small and fragile in Sam’s arms.  He hates that and it sends a bitterly cold trickle of terror up his spine, but he doesn’t let himself pull back.  Now that Gabriel’s finally in his arms again, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to let go for a while.

They lie in silence for a few moments, Sam’s hand tracing slow circles over Gabriel’s back just under his manifested wings while Gabriel struggles to maintain his composure, gritting his teeth as he waits for the pain to subside.  Sam doesn’t want to speak, terrified of saying the wrong thing – whatever that is – and for now, he’s content to imagine that nothing between them needs rebuilding, even though so many things do.

“Sam,” Gabriel finally murmurs.  His voice sounds just as superficial as always, perhaps a little bit hoarse, but his fingers tightly clutching at Sam’s shirt betray his real emotions.  “Far be it for me to deny any sort of attempt at comfort, but… you don’t have to do this.”

“I want to,” Sam tries to argue, like he hasn’t been invisible for the past month.

“I know you don’t,” Gabriel says, huffing out a mirthless laugh.  Sam wishes he’d sound angry, but he only sounds resigned, like he accepts the loss of Sam’s love.  “I get it.  You have a really bad habit of losing the shit you love.  Why add me to the list when you could just… completely detach.”  He looks up when Sam doesn’t answer, his voice flat when he adds, “Am I right?”

“Gabe,” Sam says helplessly, because he can’t deny it.  “I-”

“I don’t blame you, Sammy,” Gabriel interrupts.  “I want you happy.  Happy and sane.  And those things don’t normally happen when you watch a loved one die.  Especially that second one.  You should get back on your feet.  Move on.  Whatever you need to do.  I’ll be fine.”

“No,” Sam says explosively, because now that he’s hearing it from someone else, it sounds horrific.  “I was selfish and… awful, and you don’t deserve to die alone for the sake of my happiness.”

“Sam, I’m-”

“No, you’re not strong enough to do this on your own.  And you shouldn’t have to be.  You didn’t let me do this by myself, and I’ll be damned all over again before I let you.”  He shakes his head and indulges in a tighter hug.  “Fuck, as if I’d ever manage to forget you, anyway.  I… you’re important.  This is important.  I’m not going anywhere.”

There’s another silence in which neither of them breathe, not until Sam finally has to.

“How are you?” Sam asks weakly, because he doesn’t know, because he hasn’t been there.

“I don’t know, Sam,” Gabriel says meaningfully, a warning.  “I don’t know.  My Grace is… wrecked.  Purgatory and angel Grace is, apparently, not a pretty combination.  Wish that would have been in the instructional manual, but you know how dear old Dad is when it comes to transparency.”

“Just promise me… promise me you’ll fight,” Sam begs quietly, lacing his fingers with Gabriel’s.  Gabriel looks down in confusion before turning smoldering eyes back up at Sam.

“Promise me I’ll have a reason,” he asks just as quietly.

“Yes,” Sam promises fiercely.  “Forever.  Fuck, Gabriel.  I’m so fucking sorry.”

Gabriel ignores his apology, breathing a somewhat relieved sigh and sinking back against Sam fully, his wings twitching as they try to find a way to relax.

“Forever is a long time, kiddo,” he says, the beginning hints of a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips.

“We’ve got time,” Sam says.

Gabriel finally smiles.  “Don’t got much.  But yes.  We do have time.”


End file.
